For many years, various businesses have used mobile handheld terminals or computers with built-in, laser-based or imager-based, electro-optical readers, also known as scanners, for reading targets, such as bar code symbols, in such applications as tracking retail inventory, warehouse picking operations, and many others. These mobile terminals often have gun-like form factors, with a lower handle extending generally upwardly to an upper barrel that contains a laser-based or imager-based, scan engine that is aimed at a target to be scanned and read. The laser-based scan engine sweeps a laser beam across the target, and captures return laser light reflected or scattered by the scanned target. The imager-based scan engine captures and processes an image of the scanned target. A keyboard and/or a display are usually located on the upper barrel to allow a user to have ready manual and visual access to the terminal. These mobile terminals frequently include a radio frequency transceiver operative under at least one version of IEEE 802.11, such as Wi-Fi, to transmit data relating to the scanned target to a host computer, or to receive return data or instructions for the user. These mobile terminals have historically been manufactured specifically for users who need their combination of capabilities built into a durable, light-weight, and ergonomically-friendly package.
Recently, wireless communication mobile devices, such as smart phones, cell phones, tablets, personal digital assistants, and like handheld devices, have become available that include most, if not all, of the capabilities formerly only available in these mobile terminals. These handheld mobile devices typically have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transceivers for radio frequency communication; cameras that can be used to scan and read targets, such as bar code symbols; touch screens and/or keyboards for user manual input; speakers for audible feedback to the user; and display screens for visual feedback to the user. Since such mobile devices, especially phones, for example, are built in much higher quantities than the mobile terminals described above, such phones are less expensive to purchase. As a result, some businesses that have traditionally used mobile terminals have attempted to use such phones instead for reading targets.
However, attempts to replace such purpose-designed mobile terminals with such phones have not been wholly satisfactory for a few reasons. A typical form factor for such a phone is a bar, also known as a slate, having a generally rectangular cuboid or generally flattened, box-like configuration with rounded or angled corners and edges. A generally rectangular touch screen is mounted at a front side of the phone, and a camera lens is mounted at an opposite rear side of the phone such that a field of view of the built-in camera generally looks outwardly in a direction perpendicular to the rear side. The location of the camera lens at the rear side of the phone, as well as the lack of a dedicated trigger switch located in a convenient place for initiating scanning, makes such phones clumsy-to-handle and slow-to-use as bar code symbol scanners. Also, such phones are somewhat delicate for the kinds of harsh environments in which they are often used.
Some attempts have been made to address these issues by creating adaptors, also known in the industry as “sleds”. A selected phone is installed in a sled, which will partially enclose the phone to protect the phone from damage. Some of these sleds include a camera-based, scan engine oriented properly for easy scanning. Sometimes, a handle is provided on the bottom of the sled to provide gun-like ergonomics. In use, target data captured by the scan engine in the sled must be transmitted to the phone. This has been accomplished either by a Bluetooth transceiver in the sled paired to a Bluetooth transceiver in the phone, or by an electrical connector mounted on the sled that is plugged into a mating electrical connector on the phone.
The problem with these approaches is that any given sled design only works with a single model of phone. Pairing the phone to the sled for Bluetooth communication is time consuming and often confusing, and must be done for every phone/sled combination individually. This can be very time consuming for a user who must roll out large numbers of these devices. Different phones have different form factors, different data connectors, different electrical connector locations, different data interface protocols, etc. Furthermore, since phones evolve rapidly, and each phone model has a relatively short working lifetime, manufacturers of sleds must be continuously creating new sleds if the manufacturers are to satisfy their customers' desire to use the latest model phone. It can take a significant portion of the lifetime of a specific phone model for a sled manufacturer to respond, thereby making it difficult for the sled manufacturers to recoup their investment in each new sled configuration before the phone for which the new sled configuration was designed becomes obsolete. Furthermore, customers may not be willing to wait for a specific manufacturer to create a new sled. As a result, a sled manufacturer might lose an established customer if the sled manufacturer cannot respond with a new sled design as fast as a competitor can.
One solution for the connector problem just described has been to keep the reader and the phone as separate units, and to pair the separate units via Bluetooth technology. Although this solution suffers from the time consuming and confusing pairing drawbacks mentioned above, it does eliminate the need to deal with rapidly evolving phone form factors, etc., but results in a system that occupies two hands, which can make it difficult for a user to perform other parts of his or her job. For example, a user can put the phone in one pocket while scanning with the remote reader, but then the user cannot see the display or enter data on the keyboard of the pocketed phone. Or, the user can put the reader in one's pocket while observing the display on the phone, or when manually entering data on the phone's touch screen, but then the user cannot scan anything without retrieving the reader from one's pocket. This two-piece system can allow the user to perform the same functions of traditional mobile terminals, but at the expense of reduced convenience and efficiency.
Additional issues that afflict both the sled and remote scanner solutions include the fact that since the sled is utilizing the Bluetooth transceiver in the phone, the phone cannot pair to a Bluetooth earphone/microphone worn by a user, in applications where voice input or voice instructions will be used, and the Bluetooth transceiver in the phone also cannot be used to communicate to a host computer or cash register, as would be convenient in a point-of-sale (POS) application. An additional important issue is that these sleds or remote scanners are fairly expensive. Hence, the combination of phone and a sled/remote reader can approach the cost of a dedicated mobile terminal, thereby making the phone-based solution less appealing to the end user.
Also since the sled/remote reader includes a transceiver and a scan engine along with a microprocessor to decode targets and control the transceiver, the sled/remote reader must contain rechargeable batteries that need charging every day or two. The user must have a place in his or her business establishment to set up an array of battery chargers, and if the user forgets to charge the batteries, the sled/remote reader can become useless for a few hours while charging. A further issue is that if either the phone or the remote reader runs down its batteries in the middle of a work shift, both must be put aside until the discharged unit is recharged, to avoid the need to re-pair the reader to another phone employing Bluetooth, or to re-pair the phone to another reader, depending on which has consumed its batteries.
Accordingly, there is a need to enable a sled manufacturer to rapidly respond to evolving mobile device designs with minimal investment for each new device that is to be accommodated; to provide an extremely inexpensive sled; to not use Bluetooth pairing to interface with the mobile device so that the Bluetooth transceiver in the mobile device is available for other uses and so that the user does not waste time pairing, or re-pairing, the Bluetooth connection, if one unit of the device/reader system stops working due to damage or discharged batteries; to eliminate banks of battery chargers dedicated to the sled/reader system; to not use electrical connectors to interface the sled with the mobile device; to provide an integrated, single-handed solution so that a user does not occupy both of his or her hands while reading targets; to provide ergonomics that are as good as traditional mobile terminals; to direct the field of view of a camera in a direction that makes it easy to scan targets; and to provide a convenient mechanical trigger for initiating reading.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and locations of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The method and system components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.